The Elegium Incident
by The Math Wizard
Summary: Pilot episode of Star Trek: Phenomena. The crew of a cartographic explorer finds a strange memorial to a spacefaring civilization that visited a desolate planet eons ago. But just who were these beings, and why do their artifacts seem familiar?
1. Cold open

When the report came in that the shuttlecraft had been tractored safely into Bay 2, Captain Neval was in the ready room, fielding new orders from Admiral Beebe over the secure subspace link. I was not invited into this conference, so I left an onscreen message for him, and made my way to the shuttlebay.

I've only been serving with him for four months, but for some reason it seems like four years. I wouldn't say that he is cold toward me—maybe that is just the result of our different upbringings. It's probably my Southern blood, you know? It's probably something my momma always told me. Of course Vulcans are like that, aren't they? But it doesn't seem fair to say that, somehow. It can't be that all Vulcans are exactly the same. But, I don't know. As I said, it's only been four months.

Maybe another cause of this is the curious lack of downtime here in the ship. For a cartography ship this place always seems to be busy. Case in point? Captain Neval, as I've said before, already fielding our next orders. The shuttlecraft had barely even touched the deck!

I rounded the final corner to Shuttlebay 2. The half-meter-thick double doors lurched open. Of course I had to study the schematics of the _Cosmos_-class cartographic explorer, but every time I walk through these doors they make me nervous. What if there was a force field breach at the other end of the shuttlebay and these humongous doors closed? I always comforted myself by saying that they would probably close just as slowly as they opened.

They only opened halfway, of course, for crewmembers. Opening them all the way would take a minute, which is about forty-five seconds longer than I was willing to wait to see the crew back, safe and sound.

But when I saw the shuttlecraft on the deck, my walk hastened to a jog. The thing looked like it had been through the Kuiper belt—dents, scorch marks, and what was that, tracers from handheld phasers? And the crew—

"What the hell happened here?" Here was our ship cartographer, seated on the deck, his head against a smooth stone held in his right hand. His clothes were sandy and in disarray. And leaning his hands against the shuttlecraft's battered hull, Ensign Areckla seemed to be catching his breath. The staff of the shuttlebay was milling about, just like in the emergency drills.

I remembered that we sent four people out... where are the other two? Have they already been taken to Sickbay?

The attendant to my left suddenly said, as if reading my thoughts, "Ensign Farad and Chief Matson were beamed to Sickbay." I was turned to him as he addressed me, so it took me completely by surprise when Ensign Areckla grabbed my shoulder and faced me with eyes filled with terror.

"Don't send us back down there! There's—there's nothing for us there but... destruction! Des—"

* * *

_Space, the final frontier. In this new but tenuous peace among the stars, a galactic power cautiously rediscovers its original purpose to explore new worlds. Trading away conquest for curiosity, and suspicion for discovery, an intrepid new generation has taken up the call—to boldly go where no one has gone before. These are their stories._


	2. Act 1

Matilda Penal Colony, Erebus II

_Yes, it is a smooth stone, but you're not listening. I do consider myself immensely... lucky to find this in the wreckage. I think luck is what my father would have called it, finding this stone. In the wreckage, I mean. But my father was the one to give it to me. He says that whenever he does the daily meditation with my mother he always has this in his pocket. _

_Hmmm? Well, I actually do not know why. He said he picked it up at the bottom of some pond somewhere. The story escapes me right now, you know. He was quite an ethnographist, really. That's how he and my mother met. He was studying Vulcan culture at Cochrane West, and my mother tutored him._

_You are not able to see the ears? For a good part of my teenage years I hid them under my hair. You know about that, right? Here, see?_

_Well, getting back to finding the stone in the wreckage... hey, be careful with it. What you are doing is highly illogical; please refrain from—hey! Please give it back. Thank you. That is the last time I am showing you this stone. I find this missing and the warden will be the first to know, I promise._

_Actually, I shouldn't call it a wreckage; it was more of an emergency landing, really, but I would be getting ahead of myself there. It was a planet listed as Ozymandias IV in the official Starfleet stellar cartography, but for some reason on my ship it was called 'Elegium'. How that ever happened, I do not claim any knowledge._

_I remember that we had to call Captain Neval out of his quarters as the ship time at that point was only 0325._

"Bridge to Captain Neval."

"What is it?"

"Your presence is requested on the bridge."

Captain Neval let the low, almost imperceptible hum of the ship's inner workings take over the conversation, then after a few stretched seconds he intoned, "I will be there right away."

Lieutenant Severin stood up from the captain's chair after the conversation terminated, and gave me a reassuring look, which is what I noticed more than what she really said. "Are there any signals from the planet surface?"

I must have looked completely nervous. I saw the look she gave me; perhaps momentarily the maternal instinct took over her or something. I looked down at my console, and replied, "No, ma'am; all radio signals are from the cosmic background."

"No lifesigns in the general area," interjected Ensign Friedman from his console. "I have what looks like a good landing area for shuttlecraft."

"Bring up the coordinates."

The display showed the proposed landing site, a sand plain in the southern continent. No doubt the humans in the crew took the non-land portions of the planet to be water; in my training for this mission I had caught the bad habit also. But what I noticed the most were the deep shadows on one side of the dunes. The computer reassured us that we were indeed looking at a ground variance of less than one meter, but something about that reading was... I don't know, illogical. Perhaps the solar star was already low in the horizon. And besides, it was just an illustration extrapolated from a planetary scan. The pits could have been the product of a false coloring.

The first officer nodded, with what I would characterize as too little forethought, and addressed the helm officer. "Helm, maintain a stationary orbit above the spot."

"Aye, sir," returned Ensign Garronax, and while he was manipulating the ship's attitude toward the planet Captain Neval appeared in front of the bridge hatch.

"We are in orbit?"

"Yes, Captain," maintained Severin, as she resumed her seat beside the captain's chair. "Lieutenant Delaney has the shuttlecraft ready in Bay 2."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Neval placed his forearms nonchalantly on the armrests. "Have you considered the selection for the first away team?"

"Yes, Captain," was the reply from Ensign Thyllen, but at that point she did not yet look towards the captain's position. "We got Chief Areckla, Chief Matson, Doctor Acosta, and Ensign—"

"Doctor Acosta is undisposed at the moment. I do not think he will be able to make the mission." Neval only then cast a gaze at Thyllen, who visibly skipped a beat.

Thyllen had to take a deep breath in order to suppress the rolling boil in her blood. "Captain... then perhaps Ensign Farad can take his place." Neval put a hand to his chin, perhaps knowing the angry overtones Thyllen tried to hide beneath her voice. What is with that? I've seen how my mother could deflect my father's heated words at dinner, but somehow it never made my father feel any better.

Neval stood up. "Ensign Farad is an excellent suggestion. He has worked closely with Doctor Acosta and should be able to satisfactorily apply his research in his stead. Please prepare the team for the mission."

"Aye, captain," was the curt, yet much calmer reply.

Severin leaned forward in her seat. "Captain, is Doctor Acosta all right?"

"He walked into the arboretum before taking his allergy medication. He expressed his regret that he would not be able to land today. But he is recovering; he should be much better tomorrow."

By that time I saw everything I could observe from the bridge. The rest of the work could be done at Astrometrics.

"So I'll see you later?" I said as I passed Friedman.

"You're on, man. Holodeck 2."

I knocked knuckles with him, and boarded the turbolift.

_What? Of course there was an away team; an away team was needed to collect data that would not be available to ship scans. Yeah, the whole ship did not land. Of course it made sense... Emergency landing? No, that was much later... or earlier, actually, I should say. No, I'm not lying; you only perceive this as a prevarication on my behalf because you did not hear the whole story yet. Now, listen—_

_Yes?—It is nothing, Officer. It will not happen again.—Now see what you did? One more time and it's an extra hour for the both of us in the work barracks tomorrow._

* * *

Starbase 978

"_Elegium? You've been there?"_

"_Yeah, it's a nice place... the Federation has done a good job setting up a good treaty that was equitable for all the races."_

"_What?"_

"_Yeah, Elegium. Near the Typhon Expanse. The badlands are very bad, if you catch my drift... great for offroading your buggy around or just hiking. I took lots of photos."_

"_I don't think we are talking about the same Elegium. The Elegium we orbited was all desert."_

"_Two Federation planets with the same name? Now I've heard everything."_

"_Well, actually, I was under the impression that we named it Elegium."_

"_Whose idea was that?"_

"_Maybe someone from Astrometrics at the time. Don't know. I got an allergy attack before we could get an away team together, so I spent the whole day in Sickbay."_

"_Yeah, I remember you were telling me about Dr. Talmey!"_

"_Such an interesting character."_

"Good morning."

That was the first voice I heard after my afternoon nap.

"I was out the whole day?"

"About twelve hours. Is that normal?"

I looked around Sickbay, and found myself surrounded with equipment. There were hyposprays, isolation beds, an array of medical tricorders, and a library computer display—all were epitomes of cleanliness. Then, of course, as my eyes always did during my time there, my eyes rested on Dr. Talmey's bat'leth. It was mounted right above the hatch, so one saw it upon leaving, not upon entering. I ascribed to this some sort of symbolism, somewhere along the lines of "Now you are ready to do battle again."

"...Not really," I replied. The headache subsided just a little bit, but that unleashed a memory. "What time is it, Dr. Talmey?"

He glanced at the computer display briefly, before nodding to himself. "It is 0742 hours."

I lay back on the bed, my mind still foggy but now fully realizing that I neglected to return Thyllen's tile decorating tools.

Dr. Talmey probably saw the expression leak to my face. "Kahless himself would have said that there is very little honor in throwing away a dagger because of a missed stab; better to keep it sheathed and to struggle with the hands."

I nodded, when what I really wanted to say was, "What the heck does that mean?"

"At any rate, you are free to return to your quarters. Is your work shift in the afternoon?"

I nodded, and straightened myself out.

Maybe a few hours after that I caught some breakfast at the mess hall, and I asked Captain Neval about the away mission.

"It has been a success. Ensign Farad took your place to collect the data."

I said, as I polished off my egg whites, "I hope we were able to find something of geological significance. Perhaps a future site for a long-range observatory complex?"

Neval rose from his seat across from me. "You will find some of the data about Elegium quite intriguing. It is good to see you well, Doctor. I must attend to the reports."

I rose up after him, then sat back down, my thoughts turning to Thyllen's tools on my work table in my quarters. Then I remember thinking, _Elegium. That's a nice name. I wonder who picked it out for the planet._


	3. Act 2

USS Astyanax

_Personal log, October seventeen. I never thought that life aboard a starship would be so strenuous. My quarters are adequate, but nothing to write home about... Actually, perhaps I shouldn't write home about them; what would my mom think!? My room here is as big as my walk-in closet back home. The bed is made of metal, the nearest replicator is at the end of the hall, and my project coordinator... well, maybe she can wait till my 'supplemental' entry._

_But somehow I feel really happy. For once in my life I know I am living my dream. There is so much to learn in all these encounters with outside races. I already promised my linguistics professor back at UW that I would be proficient at ten alien tongues that are previously not documented in Federation linguistic databases. Now that I think about it, that is a really lofty goal._

_I am glad there is at least a desk here in my quarters. Tomorrow I will see if I could trade rations with Yeoman Randall so I could get a larger desk. I don't eat that much during the day, anyway._

_Perhaps when I get back home I can—_

A two-toned beep emanated from above my hatch.

"Computer, end recording.—Come in..."

I don't like where my desk is now. Sitting at it, I have my back turned to the door and I would have to either stand to turn around, or, as was my chosen plan of action that day, I forced my chair to rotate under my seat, scraping the chair legs against the floor.

"Well, someone on Deck Six is going to have nightmares."

It was Lev Martens, the engineering technician two doors down from me. His shift ended three hours ago, but he was still wearing his work uniform.

"Hey there, Lev. Want an Airy cracker?" I held out the plate from the replicator station I got three hours ago. Lots of my friends said that Airy crackers were best when they were hot, but for some reason, my sister and I always put them in the fridge before we ate them.

"That's all right; I prefer an Airy disk." Obviously I was left out of the loop, because he chuckled by himself quite heartily a good bit. Noticing perhaps that my face didn't change, he straightened out really all of a sudden and held out a PADD. I stood up and took one step towards it, and plucked it out of his hand like I would an apple.

"So it can be done?" Just at that moment it dawned on me why he was still in his work uniform: he had been working on this PADD since he clocked out. Just three nights ago it was just an idea, and him telling me that "it would take some ingenuity." But now, after he had promised to look into it, here was the PADD, obviously done with lots of hard work and—let's face it—a lot of ingenuity.

"Yeah, I think." At this point he placed his whole body through the door, thereby closing it with a whoosh behind him. "But you cannot tell anyone. Like serious, you cannot tell a soul."

My enthusiasm faded a little bit. I already knew he was going to say that. If my program coordinator—heck, Lev's superior—ever found out what we were doing, it'd be goodbye Starfleet for him, and who knows what the Captain would do with me? Everyone in my work group is calling him their favorite little Vulcan. I wouldn't take that as a compliment.

I looked nervously at the PADD that he handed me, and saw the schematics. I have to tell you; what I saw was not a violation of Starfleet rules. It was a tool. It was a serious tool that can advance the research I was laboring under by leaps and bounds. It would give me total immersion… just what Professor Setek was saying.

I turned to Lev. "I'll digitally sign the schematics. Nobody will know you ever looked at it. It'd be all my responsibility."

Lev slowly nodded his head. "You really want this, huh?"

Earlier, just before he came in, I had a smile on my face. I received a message from my brother Ken. He was checking with me, but what he wanted to tell me was that he became a manager at the metallurgy detail he had been a part of for seven months. He sent me pictures of their celebration at home, where he had chocolate cake and milk. He said that they saved me a slice in the fridge, for when I came back home.

No trace of that smile remained as I turned to Lev and nodded. I did want this.

Lev turned to leave, but glanced at me one more time before activating the door sensor.

"Man, Mariko, you are one hardcore girl."

Before I could even remember to thank him for what he did, he was gone.

* * *

Matilda Penal Colony, Erebus II

_What took you so long? What happened to you? Did you get into a fight or something—? Oh, that is great news. How much longer will you be staying here, then? Fascinating. I am glad that you have experienced this turn of events. In less than two months you would not have to bear with my stories anymore._

_Me? I actually have no idea. It is not a big deal. It is not like I had no fault. I know why I am here, and I know that I deserve it… No, I won't tell you what it is. What is that? Oh. No, it does not have anything to do with that stone. But I remember that I was going to try to meditate one day. I was going to use the stone as an aid. Come to think of it, it was about that time when we arrived at that sandy planet I was telling you about a week ago. I remember it clearly because I retraced my actions... perhaps thousands of times._

I returned to my room after my tennis rematch with Aldrich at Holodeck 2. I've known him as Aldrich long before he got the pips on his collar that made him Ensign Friedman. We were in the same exobiology class at Armstrong City Open School, but for different reasons, of course. I took the class just to fulfill the course requirements, and as for Aldrich, he tagged along because he heard there were some Deltan women also taking the class. Now that I reflect on that fact a bit more, it begins to occur to me that the Starfleet program historically has preferred applicants who, if I may use the avionics term correctly, have mastered their joysticks.

Then one day he decided to join Starfleet and I did not. We kept in touch, of course, but neither of us had the slightest idea that we would be serving in the same ship, a full seven years after we last saw each other.

None of that matters, of course. I did not ever hesitate to prove my superior grasp of tennis to him. Part of that has to do with the fact that I prefer to use an actual tennis racket with me in the Tennis simulation. The one I had was made with carbon fiber—extremely difficult nowadays to find, what with the war just over a decade ago, but I suspect we would be seeing carbon fiber everything soon enough. When my school team won the Armstrong City tournament we were allowed to keep our rackets. I became fairly emotional at that.

I count myself as lucky (there's that word again) that even though Aldrich has big fists, he has an even bigger heart, which explains why I had never received a black eye from him, even though he wins less than a third of the time. I know I can always resort to the neck pinch... but I do not know; I'm only able to do that sometimes. When I'm focused, I guess.

Which brings me back to meditation. I had wanted to be able to meditate after the sonic shower, so presently I looked to my desk near the aft porthole. I saw that it was bare, and that the stone was not on it. I was not immediately perturbed, as I cleared the whole desk before my shift that day. It was a mountain of PADDs and sheets of paper yesterday.

But when I searched all my drawers, my pockets, and the bathroom, I sat down to think. Where could I have put it? Suddenly it occurred to me that I placed a nanoemitter module on it when I first brought it aboard. I had to do that for all my personal effects, I remember—even Lieutenant Severin, who had to register her effects immediately before me. I looked up.

"Computer, please locate my stone."

A beep. "Please rephrase."

"Computer... uh, what is the location of my stone?"

A beep. "Unable to process your request. Please see... Dr. Talmey... from Sickbay for a medical consultation."

What? Oh, kidney stones? No, that is not what I meant. I took my mobile organizer from my bag, scrolling through the notes I left myself. Finally locating my personal inventory, I spoke up again.

"Computer, please locate Item number... seven four one three dash zero zero one four."

There was a beep that told me that the program was running, but there was no response. Did I forget something?

"Computer, it is mine."

Suddenly, a beep. "Item 7413-0014 is in Deck Eight, Aft Quarters, Cabin Twelve, Compartment Zero."

...cabin twelve, compartment zero. Wait a minute, that's here. In this room.

"That means it's here."

A beep. "Yes, that is correct."

"Then why can I not see it?"

A beep. "Please adjust your viewing apparatus. Otherwise, recommendation: resume search."

_I checked the recycle bin, and even asked Yeoman Baird down at Sanitation. Needless to say, I did not find it, and my sonic shower was delayed for about thirty-six minutes that time. I mean, I did not find it, but obviously I did find it, for if not then why is there a stone on the water dispenser there at the end of our cell? And if you insist that it in fact is not there, then that is a question of perception versus..._

_Are you still awake? Are you... never mind._

_If nobody hears you tell a story, does that mean you never told it at all?_


	4. Act 3

_First officer's log, supplemental._

_Our ship, having reached geostationary orbit around Ozymandias IV, has switched to research mode. It is a compliment to this fine crew that the transition between the different modes of operation of the ship are so quick and smooth. At a time when almost seventy percent of Starfleet's ships were commissioned less than four years ago, our efficiency research has cautioned that work site injury would be most likely during shift and mode transitions._

_But one of the things I happen to agree with Captain Neval on is a simple philosophy. Why have one work site injury per twenty-four hours, when you can have zero? This ship is now in her third cartographic mission, one that started nearly five Earth months ago. It is a great credit to our security team, headed by Ensign Ben Areckla, and to our operations officer, Ensign Thyllen, that we have had zero fatalities in that period so far. Their vigilance has not only made my life much easier; their example has been assimilated by the rest of the crew, and even by some of our civilian researchers._

_As of the present, fourteen hundred sixteen hours, local relativistic time, we received a signal that the shuttlecraft _Percy Shelley _has landed on the coordinates._

"The _Shelley_ has hailed."

I stood up and walked the two steps it takes to be a foot away from the viewscreen. "Open a channel, Ensign."

A low hum quickly escalated into a high-pitched squeal, signalling the opening of an encrypted commlink. That sound is one of the hallmarks of the speed at which the ship was built. During the War, of course, all communication had to be encrypted by default. After the War, most ships were designed and built to accommodate parts that were in stock, to minimize the building cost as much as possible. No doubt many of the veteran crewmembers, including me, have noticed the changes.

Soon a familiar voice piped in through the link.

"Lieutenant, we are still inside the vehicle."

"Yes, Ensign. What is the problem?"

Ensign Areckla took what sounded like a deep breath. "The air is a bit thin here... we are equipping our oxygen masks just in case."

That statement surprised me, of course. I looked toward the helm officer, who, after looking at his console, returned a nod. It turned out that while the planet was Class M, the atmosphere had a level of helium that was just outside tolerance limits for humans. Also, the relative altitude of the landing site was high, meaning that the air was much thinner than average.

"That is a good idea," I finally said. "Please keep a close monitor on your endurance. I will arrange an emergency beam up."

"Appreciated. Areckla out."

I turned back towards the bridge, and tapped on my commbadge.

"Bridge to Transporter Room Two."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Please keep an emergency transporter lock on our away team."

"Aye, lieutenant."

A pause.

"Lieutenant, some sort of electromagnetic horizon is preventing us from getting a clear lock."

I looked back onto the viewscreen. "Computer, please display the landing site map, with the EM overlay." The display came to life, and the way the computer rendered the map was very businesslike. There was nothing major; but the EM horizon was there, plain to see in the false-color image. The shuttlecraft was just beyond its feathery fringes, but the commbadge tracking devices reported the away team's location to be well into that horizon.

I looked up again. "I copy, Chief. I suggest you apply a probabilistic filter to their patterns; it may increase the chances of a good pick-up."

"Aye, Lieutenant. We will stand by for the emergency signal. Transporter Room Two out."

As I retuurned to the chair I saw the door, and inexplicably I had the craving for some coffee_. Well, it's all right_, I thought_, my shift ends in half an hour_.

* * *

"So what's here? Just sand, sand, sand?"

"Yep, looks like it," said Ensign Farad, turning towards the security officer. In reality he was startled by the way the oxygen masks over their faces muffled their voices. It also made the four of them look like large, wingless bugs with glass eyes and rubber-tube probosces.

Ensign Areckla nodded, and looked back down on his phase rifle, checking the settings one last time, before looking around. It had only been three minutes since they opened the hatch of the _Shelley_ but their uniforms were already drenched with sand, if such a thing were possible. A roiling mist of very light particles buffeted them in the wind. It was not a gale, but forward visibility was already only three meters before the team put on their masks.

"What's this sand made of?" asked Chief Matson, looking down on her shoes. "It seems... wet, for some reason. Like it flows or something."

"Don't know. Let's take a sample." Farad stooped down, producing a plastic vial from his shoulder pack, and scooped some of the sand with a careful motion. The sand seemed to resist ever so slightly, but in a split second flowed into the vial. The difference in behavior was like the difference between brown sugar and corn syrup.

The tricorder was beeping steadily in the background, collecting data, while it sat in Chief Matson's hand. "Hey, what's this?" she spoke to the tricorder, not to anyone in particular.

"A tricorder," quipped Farad.

"No... I mean, sir, do you remember any large structures being near here when we looked at the map?"

"No, it was supposed to be flat."

"Then what the heck is that?" Areckla pointed with his phase rifle. All four looked up to see, behind the veil of thick sand clouds, the faint outline of a smooth, monolithic carved rock.

"You think that's made by sentients? It looks really smooth," Farad said.

"I don't think so... the smoothness might just be the sandblowing. I mean, that big, too?"

"Well, let's get to it before we realize it's some sort of mirage." Areckla led the way in front of the others.

Of course as they approached the outline betrayed more and more features and soon they were standing at the foot of it, looking up. It turned out not to be a rock; it was very shiny and even gave out a glint at some of its portrusions. It was much bigger than they thought, and it looked like it had square holes cut into it at regular intervals. Near the base were many structural cracks, possibly from a recent seismic event, but even the ends of the jagged cracks were beginning to smooth out, all under the mercy of the airborne sands. About a minute's walk away seemed to be a log-like... shape, which seemed to be made of the same windblown material.

"Is there culture here?" Areckla swept the rifle in a moderate arc around him inquisitively.

"Maybe there was. So it wasn't always this sandy?" Farad's eyes tried to follow the top of the structure beyond his visual range, but he could not make out the top.

"But such fast deterioration? Even global warming back on Earth was not this fast! This structure only seems a few years old, at the most." Areckla seemed to be satisfied that he met the quota of rifle-swinging for one mission, and he let the weapon rest against his left hand and leg.

"Now this is why I joined Starfleet," Matson almost said to herself, nodding, about to touch the structure's surface.

"Unh..."

All four of them seemed confused as to who made the pained grunt because they all looked at each other for a split second. But as soon as the tricorder hit the sandy ground almost noislessly, its fall cushioned by the swirling powdery particles, they knew who was hit.

"Matson. Jane, are you all right?" Farad fell to his knees, hunched over the crumpled figure. "Farad to the bridge, Chief Matson is down. Request an emergency beam-out... Bridge, do you copy? Lieutenant Severin, please respond!"

Farad looked up, but Ensign Areckla was already about to disappear into the white, violently swirling void with the other security officer.

"Stay with her! I think I saw a guy from over there... Fox, follow me!..."

Farad looked back down on Jane Matson, and put his hand in front of her nose, trying to feel for breathing. It was hard to do with all the wind punching him around, but he was certain he felt a warm breath or two. When he put his hand on her neck he was heartened to find a pulse.

"Bridge, Lieutenant Severin, please respond! We are one hand down. Request emergency beam-out. Any units, please copy... we are in trouble."


	5. Act 4

Starbase 978

_"Tadaima."_

_I looked up from my tabletop game and noticed a shadowy figure cross the far side of the hall. I stood up after placing my holographic Vessel token on square E7. That Vessel token was in my hands for maybe five minutes—an eternity in this game. For that Vessel, it would have been either E7 or G5. Both were excellent spaces, but I only had one reserve Vessel. Looking back at it now, I could have decided that I put it down on E7 because then the token could help protect the space stations in the neighboring squares._

_But the voice was familiar, also. I have been to Japan back on Earth, and I have yet to find anyone say "tadaima" the way she does. When she says it, it really seems like she is glad to be back home._

_"I'm in the guest room, Ma-chan," I called out after her, after looking back at the game on the tabletop and seeing the losing play that sealed my fate. There was a holographic explosion as a space station was blown up to smithereens by a wayward weapon token._

_The transmitted voice whooped in jubilation. "Yeah, ownage, Mike! Ha ha! Betcha didn't see that coming?"_

_That Benton was going to win this game was a possibility to me ever since Turn 16, but even I could not have prophesied about the wreckage that he wrought on my side of the board. I tapped the "talk" button and congratulated him. "Nice one, Benton. That Elm maneuver worked wonders against my Barricade position. Next week again?"_

_"Whaddaya mean next week? I'm comin' there to challenge you face to face, fool!"_

_Whatever, Benton. You're on the Astrophysical Research Facility on Epsilon 3 Alpha, on the other side of the sector. But him visit? That would be nice. The last time he did was a few months ago._

_When I turned back toward the room she was already inside._

_"Mahal," she called out to me, and as she took the steps towards me I helped her sit on the couch. "Lev is coming over next weekend."_

_I nodded my head slightly. "Yeah? Are they bringing over the baby?"_

_"I think so."_

_"What's her name again? I can't remember." I really could not remember. I am notorious for forgetting names, which is another reason I am glad she's here to straighten it all out for me. _

_Which, of course, added to my surprise when she replied, "Neither can I." We both had a laugh._

_A pause._

_"Did I ever tell you the story of how Lev helped me build a linguistic neuroinjector?"_

_"A neuro-what?"_

* * *

USS Astyanax

_You know, a linguistic neuroinjector. You never heard of one? Well, it's not really a device, but a modification. See, a universal translator module, by default, takes as input the neural waves of the speaker—yes, brain waves—and tries to "solve" for a translation matrix which it then uses to output speech in the user's language. Now, what's different with the linguistic neuroinjector is that instead of the translator solving for the matrix, it simply outputs the neural waves back onto the user's cortex._

_Now it's not surprising that you've never heard of a linguistic neuroinjector, because it was highly illegal. And highly dangerous._

"Why?" I remember asking Lev that one night right after his shift.

"Well, think about it. You know that not all humanoids have the same psychic potential, or even capacity. Suppose a human and a Betazoid..."

I considered Lev's face at that time while he blabbered on about the human and the Betazoid and the Deltan. There was something in his face. That he knew all this stuff about psychic energy was not surprising; he was, after all, in Engineering, and was doing a research thesis at the time. Energy's his thing, you know? But perhaps what I saw in his face was the opportunity to use something that he had in order to help me out.

But help me out of what? If I never cooked up this cockamamie idea in the first place, there would have been no risk of psychic overflow, of going crazy, of extended neural shock which would have led to a coma. But it was something about empathy, I guess. I was craving it, perhaps. At any rate I don't remember ever telling him what the device really was for. All he knew was that it would be a form of extreme immersion in another language, and what would take years to learn will only take weeks, that is, if I could survive. He really had an honest face, an earnest face that really betrayed how eager he was to help me out just so he could spend some time with me just like that, walking the outer ring of Deck Eleven, where those full windows... I'm sorry, _portholes_... showed all the stars in the Alpha Quadrant and how some of them got trapped in his eyes.

"Earth to Mariko? Hello, did you hear any of that?"

I didn't answer. I noticed that I could see the Persephone constellation from his right eye. Yeah, it was a bit skewed from the ship's location at the time, but those same five stars, starting from Arcturus, were all there. Those stars in that arrangement could only be seen from Starbase 12. And now there they were, looking back at me.

I then looked down on the commbadge. It looked just like the one I was currently wearing as an interim communications technician. I let my fingers play with it for a while, noticing how it kind of glinted. Lev had polished it. That's unheard of, you know; his work group joked that he'd install a charge coupler while the titanium was still molten.

"The real interesting part is in the back," Lev finally said after a long time.

Turning it over, I glanced at the circuitry in the back. And in one motion I pulled out the commbadge on my uniform and placed the new one in its place.

"Wha... what did you just..."

"Keep walking, Lev... you never know who's watching."

"Nobody. There's little surveillance here. The next patrol isn't due for another three minutes." Nevertheless, he kept walking, keeping up with my pace.

I shoved my old commbadge in his hand, and my hand kind of just stayed there. "What about this?"

"I'll destroy it. For all intents and purposes that is your commbadge. So long as you do not tell."

I nodded, and reached over and kissed him on the cheek, untying my hand from his. "Thanks, Lev. You're the bomb. I'll see you tomorrow."

When I walked away, I didn't hear his footsteps either following me or walking in the other direction. Perhaps his shoes were also molten.

_"So how does that little story end?"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"I mean, did you guys get caught doing an unauthorized modification of Starfleet equipment?"_

_"Heh, maybe Lev can be the one to tell you when he comes!"_

_"You're going to make me wait that long!?"_

* * *

Starfleet Interspecies Medical Exchange

Dear Dr. Cardigan,

qaStaH nuq? I am Talmey, son of Ghos, the physician who is taking your place at your assigned ship for this mission cycle. It is a great honor to serve in your place as a part of the Medical Exchange, and I am confident that you are also serving the medical needs on my home planet valiantly.

I send this dispatch as a part of the requirements of the Exchange program. You will hear from me at least once every thirty days and at most every seven days, but you also may send your messages at your own convenience. Of course, I know that this is my first message ever in four months since the mission began, but you will understand; there have been many things to familiarize myself with in a Human vessel. As I think this, it occurs to me that the same may be happening to you at my clinic, so I will preemptively forgive your own lack of a message to me in the same amount of time.

In more agreeable matters, I am appreciative of the effort that you have exerted in making your Sickbay a welcoming place to work for me. I especially am thrilled to find the medical manuals translated into Klingon. It has saved me much time in my treatment and research of my new crew mates. If I could, I would want to lend some of my native Klingon strength to every one crewmember who walks through the Sickbay hatches. But if I did, what would be left of me?

Case in point: there was a civilian who came in with what the captain referred to as an "allergy". Now, Starfleet medical privacy regulations prevent me from discussing the case by name, but if you wish, when you return, I have kept meticulous records of my treatments, and I hope you will learn from them the way I am sure I will learn from the notes you leave from your sojourn in Kronos.

Anyway, before we cross more tangents, the civilian had an allergy. He complained of watery eyes, itching in the neck, and a feeling of general malaise. I looked up "allergies" first in the medical manual, and found that his symptoms matched the description. I gave him an antihistamine—the bilingual labels on the hyposprays were much appreciated in this situation—and put him under observation.

Then about a half hour later, I examined his blood, and I realized that there was no trace of the histamines that I was supposed to find there. I was a bit dejected because I wanted to actually witness the effect of the antihistamines on him on a cellular level.

I noted this fact down, and I received a voice message about the vessel going into "research finding mode". I understood that we have begun orbiting a planet.

Antihistamines must be very powerful, Dr. Cardigan. Why is it that humans are not working on including a gene for producing this chemical congenitally? That way there will be an innate defense mechanism against arboretum plants or food or dust. Of course, I discounted the other possibility, that he did not actually have an allergy to plants. How could I come to such a conclusion? He had the symptoms. He responded to the treatment. What else could it be?

In other news I am getting used to the ways aboard this ship. I am enjoying the food heartily, and some of the crew have invited me to join them in their meditation and relaxation class, headed by a Vulcan whose name escapes me right now. At first I wondered what good relaxation would do during battle. But then I realized that even Kahless himself was not always in physical battle. The most difficult battle, as the prophets said, is usually the battle with the self. I am looking forward to the first class.

You will find that this message adequately describes my experiences on your ship—my ship for the next year, if I understand the orders correctly. I hope that my message does not sound like a translation. I have had much help in writing this from my subordinates, and I am proud to continually serve with them as comrades.

I both expect and hope to hear from you and your impressions at all deliberate speed.

qapla',

Talmey


	6. Act 5

"Can you walk?"

"I... I think so."

Ensign Farad held Chief Matson's head up and protected her uncovered face from the winds. At first it seemed counterintuitive; the added helium would only worsen her breathing, and what about those sand particles? Who knows what they were made of? But as soon as he pulled the mask from her face she immediately woke up and started coughing out. In times of emergency you have to go with what works.

He shook out the sand that had collected in the inner part of the mask. _This stuff gets in everywhere_, he quipped to himself, and helped her put it on.

"That... that felt like a phaser set on stun."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, I know." Even her tin cup voice within her mask sounded weak.

Farad turned around to to face away from the large structure, squinting through the mask to look for some sign of the _Shelley_. But it was no use. Then he had a bright idea: the tricorder must have been tracking their position relative to the ship. Once he picks it up he can retrace their steps. But then he looked down, and immediately realized the futility of that proposition. There was no trace of the tricorder; of course it had been swallowed up, claimed by the unrelenting, roiling sands around them.

"We gotta keep moving, Jane. If not we'll be swallowed up." He lent an arm under her shoulder and walked her in the direction of the structure. He selected one of the gaping, crack-like holes to seek shelter in. When he leaned her against the inside wall of the structure, it gave a dull metallic thud, but it was so soft that he thought his mind made it up. There was a small shower of sand from the very top of the structure, probably some that had gotten knocked off the crevices. He took his handheld phaser from its side holster and scanned the darkness as best he could. He tried to contact Ensign Areckla and Ensign Fox through the commbadge, but to no avail.

He began to notice the interior more clearly, as his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room. There were many horizontal-looking appendages that acted like struts between the two sides of the tall walls. There were black vines everywhere, all covered with a thin layer of the same whitish dust that was swirling about outside. The vines were a bit strange, though, because they looked like no leaves had ever grown on them. _Which is probably not strange_, he thought; _perhaps it was an adaptation_. At any rate they looked dead.

But then he saw something that caught his eye: a horizontal bar, perhaps twenty meters above them. It was a very thick one, but it had a hole cut out of it. The shape of the hole was a rounded rectangle, different from the window-like holes from the outside that he thought he would have been able to see from the inside.

"Matson, you awake?"

"Yes, sir." Her posture did not change.

"Do you see that pillar over there, that one with the rectangular hole?"

"Yeah, barely. You mean the one with that ladder-like thing going out the side?"

"Yeah."

As soon as Farad was convinced that Matson had studied it as well, he said, "What does that look like to you?"

Chief Matson craned her head up to look at it in more detail, and concluded, "Like a metallic tree trunk with a hole cut out of it."

At this Farad nodded, and sat next to her, keeping the phaser ready. "OK, well, now look at it with your head turned sideways."

She tried to do it without cracking her neck, but then she froze. "Oh... it's..."

The confirmation for the both of them was a simple legend that seemed to be laser-cut into the trunk beside the hole. It seemed to be written sideways, but as soon as Matson lighted her eyes on it it was like reading an engineering schematic.

"It says 'Jeffries Tube 47A'."

Before they could look at each other in surprise, a figure stumbled towards them; as it did it exuded much smokelike dust. It was much too fast for its trajectory to be intuitively determined, and Matson recoiled, her feet scraping the sanded floor repeatedly, trying to get away from it. Farad strafed away from what he thought was its trajectory, and trained his phaser at it, his trigger hand shaking.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

The figure unclenched and attempted to unravel. He was not wearing a security uniform, so it was neither Areckla or Fox. He held a smooth stone that fit snugly in his left hand.

Before Farad could say anything, Matson recognized the dusty face, beating him to the identification.

"Halek! What are you doing here?"

* * *

Matilda Penal Colony, Erebus II

_No, I don't know how I ended up in the wreckage. Remember me telling you about the away team selection, right? I wasn't part of it. In fact, I wasn't focused on it at all. After I did the preliminary cartographic scan of the planet surface near the landing area I had nothing else to do. That's when I tried to go back to my room to try to meditate without the stone._

_Yes, this stone. There was only one stone ever. Get it straight! Are you even listening?_

_So anyway, I sat on the mat and I tried the deep breathing. I've done it thousands of times, heck, at the time I even taught a class in relaxation aboard the ship. But it was always with the stone, you see. I was finding it very difficult._

_But just then, the image of the stone popped into my mind. The image just became clearer and clearer. At some point, I felt myself reaching out to it, and closing my left hand upon it. But as soon as I did, I felt an annular confinement beam go around me. Yeah... I realized that I was being transported, beamed out._

_When I opened my eyes the science officer had his phaser trained at me and Chief Matson said my name. She asked what I was doing there._

"I... I don't..."

I looked around and I realized that I was very dusty. And very painful. I think I fell maybe two meters, and rolled down a sand mound and some metallic components. The air felt... different as well; it had a faint metallic taste. I was too stunned to speak up until that time, until I saw where I was.

It didn't hit me at first, but I remember having the distinct feeling that the room I was in was turned on its side. It was a big room, with white dust all around. But then I saw what I thought at first was a rock. It was actually a cargo container. It would have contained neural gel packs. Then I read what it said on the box itself:

USS L'Hospital

NCC-5575

I suddenly looked up at the other two. "What in the world happened to our ship!? Did we crash?"

Ensign Farad considered me for a good few seconds after I fell silent, and picked up something from the ground. I didn't recognize what it was yet, until he turned it around and I saw a PADD. It was fossilized beyond repair, and much of its casing had degraded.

"Yeah, Halek... you could say our ship crashed. It crashed here a good three, four hundred years ago."

When he dropped the PADD onto the ground it shattered into a million pieces.


	7. Act 6

_Ship log, Stardate 65329.6. Helm Officer Garronax recording._

_We have positioned the L'Hospital over geostationary orbit with the planet over the landing site. It had been about twenty-seven earth minutes since Away Team One made their last contact with us. This is worth noting in the log, but, unless three more minutes pass, it is not a cause for concern according to the field manual._

I turned to Ensign Friedman, who was at the Science console.

"Ensign Friedman, do you have any idea what is causing that EM horizon?"

"Well, if you look there..." he pointed to the large viewscreen with his finger. I followed his finger to the false-color map of the planet's surface, and saw that he was pointing to an area where the red coloring was the deepest. "You see that area there where we are reading at least 13.9 kilojoules?"

I nodded in his direction and blinked.

"It's most likely to be there, the source. Let's see the EM Rate overlay." He pressed a few buttons on his console, and sent the calculations to the viewscreen. Now what seemed like a dozen pixelated green bugs began to crawl the screen in different curvilinear directions, but never bumping into each other. Soon there was a contour map of green lines over the red shadings on the map.

I said to myself more than to Ensign Friedman, "So that's how you get that map."

"Yeah. See, look at the contour gradient around the 13.9 event. That sharp gradient indicates something that has lots of power. If I had to estimate, maybe about three-fourths that of our warp core."

"I see." I sank back into my seat, in possession now of more information, but inexplicably more uneasy. A few seconds passed where the hum of the ship took permeated the bridge, the vibrations traveling through the reinforcing pylons that are strung throughout the ship. Then Friedman said something else.

"Man, I bet... you know, if there were a comm tower under that thing we would never know. It's so strong! We'll need to tell Cartography to use some other method to map the surface."

"Understood." I turned to the Tactical station. "Make the calculations, Chief M'rel." Once the tactical detail bent down to work, I tapped my commbadge. I noticed that none of the maps of the planet have the name of the planet on it. I was under the assumption that it had already been named hours ago, after the away team briefing.

"Bridge to Cartography, please come in."

"Yes, bridge."

"Is there a way to map the surface of this planet that could cut through that EM horizon?"

"Not yet, but we'll think of something."

"Thank you. And what about the name of the planet?"

"Oh, well, sir, I thought its name was in the Starfleet registry."

Something hit me. This was not Halek I was speaking to. Halek, our ship cartographer, would have known the official name. He had the general orders. And he would not have called me "Sir", either.

"Mr. Foreman?"

"Yes, that's me, Ensign Garronax. I copy."

"Mr. Foreman, where is Mr. Moynihan?"

"I don't know, sorry. His shift just ended, maybe fifteen minutes ago."

I turned towards the viewscreen, and the blank space where the name of the planet should be seemed much bigger now that I kept looking at it. Was it collective forgetting? It must have been some kind of mistake. We had to visit so many sectors in the last two months with nary a liberty period. The mistakes were bound to crop up. But forgetting the name of a registered planet?

Just then there was a cautionary beep from behind my console. M'rel straightened up.

"Ensign Garronax, there has just been an unauthorized beamout."

"From where?"

"Deck 8 aft."

"So not our transporter room? It wasn't our machine?" My mind raced. Unauthorized beamouts are usually mistakes. A person may beam to the surface too early, before his or her name was put into the away team roster. Very few are ever cases of suicide, where the person beams himself or herself into space. But those are only the ones that originate from the transporter room.

"No, not our machine."

"How do you know there was a beamout?"

M'rel looked at the science screen. "There's been a slight decrease of overall mass in the ship. Also, we detected traces of tachygenic waves leading away from the ship from Deck 8 aft."

Tachygenic waves are used to carry annular confinement beams that sheathed objects in transport. I never thought question number seventeen in my final exam last semester would ever come up in my mind again. For a split second I thought of calling up Lieutenant Severin to the bridge, and that feeling stayed with me throughout.

"Who was transported?"

M'rel paused, a sigh escaping him slowly. He slowly said, "It was Mr. Halek Moynihan."

_"Miss Luhrmann, my name is Ensign Garronax, and I would like you to sit down. It is with the heaviest of hearts that we send you these condolences. Our brother, Chief Vassily Kandinsky, was killed in the line of duty, on Stardate 57212. He was Tactical consult of Fox Fighter Wing 54 Alpha, and as such he and his service will always be remembered."_

_Dana kind of just sat there, but she seemed to sink into the couch. I really thought she would be crying already, but you never know what to expect with these things. Perhaps she was just surprised by the officialness of my speech. I rather think that I'd flinch a bit too if someone who had called me Dana since he and my lover became good friends called me "Miss Luhrmann" all of a sudden. But that was what the script said. I even looked down to make sure, when she did not respond right away._

_"Miss Luhrmann, if you have any questions..."_

_"Anong nangyari sa kanya?" she said softly. I did not hear it clearly the first time._

_"I'm sorry, could you... repeat that?"_

_"Anong nangyari kay Vassily? Paano siya namatay?" As she stood up, her eyes were burning up, with the tears nowhere to be seen, and I suddenly realized that my universal translator was manually deactivated. I tapped my commbadge once, but when I rested my eyes on the commbadge I realized how much Dana's eyes burned through mine. It was as if I looked into the warp reactor coils during warp and closed my eyes at once. _

_"I'm sorry, I'm..." but as the neural output came through into the space between my ears I nodded. "Vassily's fighter vessel was attacked by a rogue faction of Dominion forces. The life support systems on his ship failed, and when he ejected, one of the Dominion fighters fired upon the escape pod." After I read this I began to notice that the text on the PADD screen in front of me became blurry. I was not crying; rather, I felt a dull, painful anger rise up behind my throat. It was threatening to choke me, and as a result my hand slowly opened, and the PADD clattered against the composite plastic floor in Dana's sitting room._

_"We tried to save him."_

_"I know, Gary, I know you did." She stopped looking at me, and it appeared as if she said it more to herself than to anyone else. "Excuse me, Gary, I have to... call..."_

_And then she just suddenly crumpled onto the ground. I proceeded to collect her from the floor and deposit her onto the nearby couch. When she came to, she was already crying, as if she started sobbing while in her dream. I could imagine my father crying for my mother or one of his other two wives, but somehow I could not imagine this. Dana only had one lover. It was strange to me, that custom. How could you ever feel secure? But the script says we have to help her, give her a card that she could contact us by, tell her that disposing of his remains would be taken care of, no matter the manner his faith or belief prescribes._

_So I did._

"I'm picking up a fifth lifesign on the planet surface."

It took me a while to respond. "Where?"

"On the planet surface, Ensign."

"Is it Mr. Moynihan?"

As M'rel tried to verify, I was hanging on every word.

"We can't be certain. I'll keep trying but the EM horizon is..."

"I know, I know." I put my head down, and stood by my console. _Someone turn off that damn horizon!_

I saw the shipboard clock. The requisite number of minutes have passed.

"Bridge to Captain Neval. This is Ensign Garronax. We have a situation."


End file.
